Dr Duoduo Xu

Assistant Professor

ddxu@hku.hk
+852 3917 2062

9.05, 9/F., The Jockey Club Tower, Centennial Campus

Biography

Duoduo Xu (許多多) is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Hong Kong (2019-present). She also holds joint appointments at the Department of Geography and the Faculty of Arts. Before joining HKU, she was a Research Assistant Professor of Social Science and a Junior Fellow of Institute for Advanced Study at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (2017-2019).

In 2017, Xu received her PhD in Social Science from HKUST, where she was also trained at the Center for Applied Social and Economic Research (CASER). She completed her MPhil in Social Science at HKUST in 2013 and BA in Sociology at Shandong University in 2011.

Xu’s research interests center on social stratification and inequality, and lie at the intersection of urban sociology, sociology of education, and sociology of work. In particular, she is interested in understanding:

• how social-spatial factors (e.g. migration, segregation, location) shape urban residents’ attitudes, behaviors, and life chances;
• the impacts of various family, school and neighborhood factors on children’s educational and developmental outcomes;
• young people’s experiences of school-to-work transition, precarious employment and labour market mismatch.

Xu’s studies are mainly concerned with child development and youth employment issues in Chinese cities (e.g. Hong Kong, Shanghai, Beijing), and she draws on various longitudinal survey datasets and a range of quantitative methods for causal inference. Currently, she is working on multiple research projects, including:

• Skill Requirements of Job Ads during an Economic Recession in Hong Kong: A Machine Learning Approach to Studying Labour Market Mismatch
• Educational Expansion, College Premium and Social Mobility: A Comparative Study of Hong Kong and Taiwan Youth (funded by RGC-ECS)
• Socioeconomic Segregation, School Choice, and Geography of Educational Inequality in Hong Kong (funded by RGC-GRF)